14 important and beautiful places in Catford
Including five local restaurants
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If you haven’t come here via @caffs_not_cafes, I'm a writer called Isaac Rangaswami and this is my Substack.
Every other week I publish an article about everyday places in London with unusual staying power, like shops, buildings, restaurants and public spaces.
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What first drew me to Catford was its street furniture, the functional objects that reveal what the area was like before all the concrete, when it was a village outside London. My favourites are the 19th century water handpumps, along with the ornate ventilation shaft by the station, one of many installed to stop London’s Victorian sewer system from blowing up. Then there are the grass verges on Rushey Green, remnants of this area’s historical marshiness, now fenced off like little roadside parks.
Later, when I got more into places than things, the multiplicity of Catford’s restaurants pulled me in further. I ate my first Afghan meal here, my first egusi soup, along with the best-value katsu curry I’ve ever had. I want to write about all of these places because I don’t think the internet does Catford justice. If you search “Catford guide”, some of the highest-ranking articles feature few entries that are actually in SE6, including those written by estate agents. So as with my Irish pubs and second-hand bookshops pieces, I want to produce something more thorough, or at least something that feels true.
I’m also conscious that local concerns about ambitious redevelopment plans have persisted in Catford for some time now. And I too am worried about the tendency of “regeneration” to enrich the few at the expense of the many, while erasing the valuable community spaces that existed before, only to create new places aimed at other people.
Still, those I spoke to from Catford said they thought it hadn't yet altered all that much, or that transformation is happening in an irregular way. “Catford has fluctuated in change,” a musician called Courtney told me. “I think the massive works planned will change the area quite a lot, but then who knows,” another local called Hannah Plant said. “It changes but then it doesn’t.”
I’m not from Catford, or even London, so I’m not qualified to declare what’s good in this part of the city, let alone assemble these pronouncements into a list. But I live next to Catford and I’ve been trying to get to know it for half a decade now. So rather than writing a guide, I’ve simply tried to focus on places that seem important and beautiful to me as an outsider, to celebrate them. I will have missed some, no doubt. But I hope this list of places resonates with people from the area, as well as those from elsewhere too.
St Laurence Church
If they weren’t so long and curvilinear, St Laurence Church’s leatherette seats would be right at home in a modernist caff. They’re a lot like the ones at Trevi Restaurant in Islington: upright and dignified, their skinny legs fixed to the ground. Along with all the heritage concrete and refracted light, I am particularly fond of the church roof. Internally it is a broad dome, culminating in a skylight; outside it is a pointy crown like Bart Simpson’s head.
37 Bromley Rd, London SE6 2TS
Auntie Annie’s
Along with Yves, Quela's, The Post, Jerk Scene, Mama’s Pot, Jerk Haven, Islands Kitchen, Vegan Flavours, Fresh From Yard, Evans World Foods, Mye Green Mango and the stall by Costa, Auntie Annie’s is one of many Caribbean food businesses in Catford. I’ve only tried the jerk chicken and the macaroni cheese here so far, the first of which featured tender blackened haunches, the other a generous amount of stretchy, mozzarella-like crust. Both were enough to convince me that a “small” at Auntie Annie’s would surely be a “medium” somewhere else. I ate my satisfying meal on the bench around the corner, facing the Hovis ghost sign, as jerk smoke wafted over the wall.
1, Sandhurst Market, London SE6 1DL
Catford Mews
Like the new library a few doors down, Catford Mews is a place where you can work, sit down and use the loo for free. The venue opened in 2019 and is run by a company called Really Local Group, that operates similar community-focused developments in Reading, Sidcup and Ealing. It has pizza, a bar, a cafe, three cinema screens and Japanese fried chicken. Importantly, the cinema tickets are affordable and the Wi-Fi is free.
Scientist Oniz Suleyman, who has lived in Catford her whole life, told me her dad used to run a clothes stall in the old Catford Mews, before the marketplace became a (later disused) Poundland. Oniz said she welcomed the return of a cinema to Catford and the development more broadly, as did others: “I like that Catford is developing in terms of third spaces,” local musician Courtney told me. She also noted Sister Midnight, a community-owned venue set to open in 2025, as another symbol of that change.
I like Catford Mews because people clearly use it just to hang out. By day, you’ll find plenty of parents with babies in the front area, as well as many workers with laptops. Most look like they’ve bought something, and there are signs encouraging people to do so, to support the venue. Hearteningly, a member of staff told me they don’t turf people out who don’t. Later in the day more people chill out in the section by the bar and the cinema screens, including people reading and going on their phones. On my last visit, I saw a trio playing a game of pool with a single pint between them.
32 Winslade Way, London SE6 4JU
Watandar Restaurant
When I walk from Lewisham to Catford, I start to feel one become the other just after the hospital. This is also where Watander is, an Afghan restaurant shaped like a maisonette. I’ve enjoyed seeing the place’s two shiny floors evolve since it opened a year or so ago, when those dining rooms were barer. These days they contain more artwork, fairy lights and groups of regular customers.
I tried my first chapli kebab at Watandar, as well as my first cup of sheeryakh. But it was my first ghormeh sabzi that I enjoyed the most, with its varying shades of earthy bitterness and dried limes the size of new potatoes. Whenever I’m there, I try to chat with the proprietor, who always seems to be hoovering when I arrive. Last time we spoke, he suggested I try the mantoo and Qabuli palow next.
377 Lewisham High St, London SE13 6NZ